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The truth about New York candidate Lewis Lehrman

by Charles Thte

The campaign 9f Republican Lewis Lehfman for New York Gallatin, who dismantled Alexander Hamilton's First Na­ Governor has won a national media forum in the bellwether tionalBank and treated the United Statesto its firstdepression.) mid-term elections Nov. 2. Lehrman, an unknown dubbed Lehrman's early role in feeding Reagan his disastrous "Lew who?" during his primary campaign, had by late Oc­ economic policy makes it clear that the central fraud of the tober spent well in excess of $10 million to create and project Lehrman candidacy is the claim that it represents a referen­ an image as an intellectual leader and successful small busi­ dum on the Reagan administration. Lehrman has attacked nessman witha novel, if conservative, program for economic what he describes as "Reagonomics," and has marketed his recovery and fighting crime. Even if he loses the close gub­ economic theory as a genuine "conservative alternative." ernatorial race, some predict, Lehrman could emerge from Examination reveals that there is nothing conservative in the contest as a significant conservative figure. Lehrman's economic policy, which can be described as a But there is not one red cent's worth of truth in the multi­ crazy quilt of 19th century British liberalism coupled with million dollar Lehrman fraud.If New Yorkers fall for it, they Ezra Pound-like diatribes against cheapening the worth of will have won themselves the distinction of electing the best money. Lehrman's proposal for a return to the gold standard, man to lead the state into an abyss of economic collapse. is designed not to create new sources of credit for economic development, but to contract credit even more savagely than Voodoo economics Paul Vo1cker's double-digit interest rates. The economic recovery program Lehrman advertises is, For New York, Lehrman has advanced an economic aus­ in bald fact, the very same program which plunged the United terity program more savage than any now imposed on a States into its present depression collapse.Lehrman is among western industrialized economy. The state budget will be the leading proponeqts of the now totally discredited "supply balanced, while taxes will be reduced by 40 percent. This side" formula responsible for the Reagan administration's will be accomplished, Lehrman admits, by wholesale slash­ failure to implement an economic policy for development, ing of social services. Mental hospitals will expel all but the and which led it to tolerate the economy-wrecking policy of dangerously insane, adding to the menacing glut of "bag Federal Reserve chief Paul Vo1cker. Lfhrman was so influ­ people" in communities across the state; school budgets will ential in the initial formulation of these disastrous policies be slashed, by offering tuition tax-credits explicitly designed that he was considered as a possible Reagan administration to induce parents to send children to private schools and take Secretary of the Treasury. (Lehrman's bid for this post was the burden of paying for education off the state; public em­ entered with his selection of the pseudonym "A. Gallatin," ployee unions will be made to heel, or face the threat of being which Lehrman used on his earliest published economic trea­ busted by an administration devoted to "a free market in tises. He thus announced his adherence to the treasonous labor;" "able-bodied" welfare recipients-including mothers tradition of the nation's second Treasury Secretary, Albert of infants-will be booted off welfare and forced to take any

52 National EIR November 2, 1982

© 1982 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. job they can find-in a labor market now officially at over 10 wage workers like Rite Aid employees, and college students percentunemployed. sell their blood for $7 a pint. (The low price is reportedly the Lehnnan's economic plan is so reckless that even the result of a glut in the blood supply, caused by a growing army state's ranking Republican leader, State Senator Warren An­ of donors who need the pittance to get by.) derson, has called it "misguided" even at the risk of handing If Lew Lehrman is given the chance to run New York the the Democrats a campaign issue. Anderson, known as the way he ran Rite Aid-as he has promised�ds are he will Senate's leading financial expert, endorsed Lehnnan none­ edge out Paul Volcker in public infamy as "the biggest blood­ theless-but pulled a no-show at the press conference called sucker since Dracula." by Lehnnan to announce the endorsement. His telegram of But probably the most outrageous of the many frauds of apology explained that he had to dedicate a local bridge. Lew Lehnnan is his claim to favor a tough anti-crime policy. Lehnnan, who has no experience in public office at any Of course, Lehnnan's budget-slashing mania will not appro­ level, has argued that his brilliant success at the helm of Rite­ priate a single dollar for an expanded war on crime. He has Aid, the family business, demonstrates his fitness to occupy not taken a clear stand in support of the Reagan administra­ the statehouse. To hear Lehnnan tell it, his business genius tion's war on drugs, necessarily the backbone of any real was responsible for the meteoric rise of Rite-Aid from a small drive to break the back of crime. grocery concern to a multi-million dollar drug-store chain. Lehrman has instead offered a necrophiliac fixation on But Rite Aid's chairman and chief executive officer, the death penalty as a final solution to the problem of crime, Lehnnan's brother-in-law Alex Grass, has disputed Lehr­ and has made his support for death the top issue in his cam­ man's account of his business experience, responsibility, and paign. In a recent interview, Lehnnan found a way to smug­ acumen as grossly exaggerated. Lehnnan, he points out, was gle a reavowal of his support for the electric chair into every a school boy when the transition from grocery to chain store answer, no matter how irrelevant to the question. was made. When he joined company management, it had But even more revolting is the law-and-order candidate's already passed the crucial million-dollar mark, and it has association with notorious organized-crime attorney Roy M. seen its greatest period of growth after Lehnnan leftmanage­ Cohn and quondam Meyer Lansky frontman U.S. Ambas­ ment. The only period of crisis for the company, a 90 percent sador to Italy Maxwell Rabb. collapse in the value of its stock, occurred when Lehnnan If the duplicity and contrivance of the Lehnnan image was Rite Aid president. makes the candidate appear to be a marionette, then with Although Lehnnan's claim that his Rite Aid experience Cohn and Rabb we meet the puppeteers. demonstrates special business skill is just another fraud, his Cohn's "closet" backing for Lew Lehrman is reflected in relationship with the company does provide insight into what the total control of his campaign by Cohn's haven for orga­ a Lehnnan governorship would mean for New York State. nized crime and homosexual degeneracy, the East Side Con­ Rite Aid is a notorious anti-union shop. Most of its em­ servative Club. Club members, and Cohn intimates in the ployees are non-union, and many of these earn less than Lehrman campaign include: William F. Buckley, Jr., whose $3.60 an hour. Company policy also favors hiring of non­ National Review first endorsed Lehrman; Thomas Bolan, union construction on new stores. Teamster officials have Cohn's law partner and chairman of the club, who functions complained bitterly about Rite Aid's use of non-union truck­ as a top campaign aide, and Serfan Maltese, New York ers. Rite Aid has also effectively "red-lined" New York City, State's Conservative Party chairman. refusing to expand there for fear that its workers will be Most important among East Side Conservative Club organized by the Health and Hospital Workers Union, Local members in the creation of the Lehnnan fraud, however, is 1199, itself a low-wage union. MaxweU Rabb, now U.S. Ambassador to Italy.Rabb, him­ Rite Aid's Chairman Grass is a former trustee of the self a protege of Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge of the Genoese Pennsylvania Right to Work Foundation. A Teamster leader Caboti family which sponsored the United Fruit Company said of Rite Aid: "They expect slave labor... . If they had apparatus that brought together the Mazzini mafia with Jew­ theirway, therewould not beany organized laborin America. " ish Mobster Samuel Zemurray, served as Lehrman's mentor. Union leaders also claim that Rite Aid engages in illegal In the 1960s, Rabb served on the board of directors of three spying on its workers to keep them from union organizing, corporations later identified as fronts for the Lansky mob: installing two-way mirrors in employee rest rooms and the International Airport Hotel Systems; Seven Arts; and Amer­ like. Two years ago, the Attorney General of Maryland sued ican Newspaper Company. Rabb later joined the board of the Rite Aid for "unlawfully forcing job applicants to take lie Lehnnan family's Rite Aid, whose chairman, Alex Grass, detector tests." Rite Aid agreed to pay $57,000 restitution to has been linked with organized crime kingpin, Detroit's Max 22 workers fired for refusing to take the tests. Fisher. Rabb's most notorious and most recent implication But an even better image of the Lehnnan program can be in criminal activity was his interference in attempts to obtain evoked by a visit to a branch of Rite Aid's $14 million security protection for Lyndon and Helga LaRouche for their subsidiary-Sera-Tec Biologicals, a supplier of blood plas­ scheduled appearance at the Oct.20-21 founding conference ma. Here, the unemployed, welfare recipients, minimum- of the Club of Life in Rome.

EIR November 2, 1982 National 53